Though it’s no longer a particularly dominant force in top-level racing, MV Agusta spent approximately four decades with an absolute stranglehold on professional Grand Prix racing, including 37 manufacturers titles and 38 riders titles—17 of which were won consecutively. And while each of MV’s GP championships was won out of a team effort, the Varese marque’s director of race development, Arturo Magni, almost certainly played the most pivotal role in many of these wins. Arturo would eventually leave MV Agusta to start his own boutique shop in 1977, producing modified, high-performance versions of existing models, many of which bore an MV badge on the tank.
Sadly, Arturo passed away five years ago, though the Magni company remains in operation. Now that a half-decade has passed since his death, his namesake company is honoring his contribution to motorcycling through a one-off custom build known as the “Italia 01 / 01.” Powered by the 110hp 798cc inline-three mill from MV’s current Brutale sport naked, the two-wheeled tribute is constructed around a bespoke 25CrMo4 chassis and adorned in one-off hand-formed bodywork in Magni’s classic Italian cafe racer style. There’s also four-pot Brembo brakes biting 320mm floating discs, JoNich Wheels spoked wheels, and a modern fork inspired by 1970s Grand Prix units. A quintessentially Italian “Rosso Corsa” livery and a set of signature swooping blacked out exhausts complete this rolling homage.
